Posted: 3/3/2009 4:50:39 AM EDT
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I was going to ask about a couple gunstores from the past, however the name of one just popped into my head.
Andy Andersons! That was one store, the one that just hit my mind. The other, I'm not for sure I've ever known it's name, or it's been so long since I've been there the name is just lost to me. This other store was some sort of 'habadashery' a mens clothing store in an old old building in OKC. I seem to recall that the gunstore part was in an old theatre looking part of the store, meaning that it reminded me of a theatre with a sloped floor that sloped down towards the gun counter itself. This particular store was open as recently as the early 1980's, as I remember buyng a sporterized 03-A3 Remington rifle there at that time. I do not recall the street or much else about the stores location, except it seems like it was in the central part of the city. Any ideas about the mystery gunstore of my youth? No particular reason for wanting to know. I was just thinking about that particular rifle I bought in the store, and was curious as to the stores name. |
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I was going to ask about a couple gunstores from the past, however the name of one just popped into my head. Andy Andersons! That was one store, the one that just hit my mind. The other, I'm not for sure I've ever known it's name, or it's been so long since I've been there the name is just lost to me. This other store was some sort of 'habadashery' a mens clothing store in an old old building in OKC. I seem to recall that the gunstore part was in an old theatre looking part of the store, meaning that it reminded me of a theatre with a sloped floor that sloped down towards the gun counter itself. This particular store was open as recently as the early 1980's, as I remember buyng a sporterized 03-A3 Remington rifle there at that time. I do not recall the street or much else about the stores location, except it seems like it was in the central part of the city. Any ideas about the mystery gunstore of my youth? No particular reason for wanting to know. I was just thinking about that particular rifle I bought in the store, and was curious as to the stores name. Andy Anderson's was right off of NW Hwy and Penn. Mashburns was around 16th and Penn. Mashburn's got ridiculous in prices and basically run themselves out of business. Mashburn was a well known and respected gunsmith nationally in the late 40s through 60s. Andy Anderson catered to the well-to-do rich sportsmen from Nichols Hills. The lack of customer base shut them down. I have a single shot 22 Winchester my dad bought from Andy Anderson's when it was downtown in 1942. I remember SW Shooters selling me some individual 45 LC shells (six to be exact) to try out a junker 45 Colt I'd bought when I was 14 (1967 or so.) They were down on Main Street, way before Dale Cane built that concrete fort on Linwood and Penn. And Fred Baker Firearms was open on 23rd and McArthur before he bought that Triumph motorcycle shop and turned it into Outdoor America in the mid 80. The gunsmith at Andy Anderson was a guy named Dan Simington. I don't know if he is still alive or not, I used to eat breakfast at Coits on NW 50th and Portland. A BUNCH of the real old timers ate breakfast there. Even some guys who'd run around with Mashburn when he was till alive. I remember the first big gun shows held in OKC in the late 70s. They were a lot of fun. Shawnee and Midwest City also had some great ones. Now we have stores lile Bass Pro, Academy, and Sportsman Warehouse. Ain't the same, that's for sure. 
OK Chuck, go ahead and pull out the old fart comments and get it done with. 
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Not Mashburn arms, not Southwest Shooters, I remember them well. Not the old Fred Bakers either. This was a different place I'm trying to remember. I think Mashburn Arms may still be in business on Easter, they were as of 2000. I don't think I remember the gun store you're talking about. At one time, I knew everyone of them well here in the OKC area.... |
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Quoted: I think Mashburn Arms may still be in business on Easter, they were as of 2000. They are. Interestingly enough my mom is doing some biz with them right now. She called and asked me if I had ever heard of some wildcat Mashburn cartridge, which I had not, because she is printing some business cards for them. |
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I think Gun World on South Sunnylane is the current name of Mashburns, back in the 60's Mashburns had a real good business, I bought a lot of stuff off of them.
I have no idea of the mystery shop you mention, it doesn't ring any bells at all. Mashburn was involved in several wildcats as I recall, he was a big name on the firearms scene at one time. |
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Mashburn made custom rifles and developed some wildcat rounds he marketed too.
I remember going into the old Mashburn Arms down the street from Southwest Shooters, and it was a dusty, musty dump! The store didn't have much to interest me, and anything they did have was over-priced. I figured they had gone out of business until I won a Henry .22 levergun, and had to drive over to the 'new' store on Eastern avenue to pick it up and do the paperwork. I do miss Southwest shooters though. I liked that store. Bought quite a bit of stuff there at the time. I pretty much do my gun business at 'Big Boys Guns and Ammo' now. They ain't the cheapest neccesarily, but the service is far far superior to 'Outdoor America'. That makes a big difference to me. Walking into Outdoor America and being ignored by the sales crew just never caused me to buy much there!  When it was down the street, and named 'Fred Bakers', it was crowded generally, but you could get friendly service then.
The Outdoor America guys were up in arms over the new Bass Pro shop when it was being built, belly-aching about the unfairness of the tax breaks and all that, wanting everybody to sign a petition to the city bitchin' about it, claiming it would kill their business. Maybe true.Likely true, however I had but little sympathy for them because of all the times I stood there hopping up and down trying to get somebody to get me something from behind the counters while being blatently ignored!  I note that service has improved somewhat lately, being a tolerable place to shop now, but I still do but little business there.
Just after Bass Pro went into business, I went to Outdoor America, and they were still belly-aching about the unfairness of it all. I then drove to Big Boys Guns and Ammo, and bought some stuff, asking the owner if he thought Bass Pro had damaged his business. He replied "no, I think it actually improved business getting a Bass Pro"! Thats the sort of positive outlook I like!  They got my business now.
Still bugs me I can't recall that one particular old store's name! Hell...It still may be in business for all I know. |
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I was going to ask about a couple gunstores from the past, however the name of one just popped into my head. Andy Andersons! That was one store, the one that just hit my mind. The other, I'm not for sure I've ever known it's name, or it's been so long since I've been there the name is just lost to me. This other store was some sort of 'habadashery' a mens clothing store in an old old building in OKC. I seem to recall that the gunstore part was in an old theatre looking part of the store, meaning that it reminded me of a theatre with a sloped floor that sloped down towards the gun counter itself. This particular store was open as recently as the early 1980's, as I remember buyng a sporterized 03-A3 Remington rifle there at that time. I do not recall the street or much else about the stores location, except it seems like it was in the central part of the city. Any ideas about the mystery gunstore of my youth? No particular reason for wanting to know. I was just thinking about that particular rifle I bought in the store, and was curious as to the stores name. Andy Anderson's was right off of NW Hwy and Penn. Mashburns was around 16th and Penn. Mashburn's got ridiculous in prices and basically run themselves out of business. Mashburn was a well known and respected gunsmith nationally in the late 40s through 60s. Andy Anderson catered to the well-to-do rich sportsmen from Nichols Hills. The lack of customer base shut them down. I have a single shot 22 Winchester my dad bought from Andy Anderson's when it was downtown in 1942. I remember SW Shooters selling me some individual 45 LC shells (six to be exact) to try out a junker 45 Colt I'd bought when I was 14 (1967 or so.) They were down on Main Street, way before Dale Cane built that concrete fort on Linwood and Penn. And Fred Baker Firearms was open on 23rd and McArthur before he bought that Triumph motorcycle shop and turned it into Outdoor America in the mid 80. The gunsmith at Andy Anderson was a guy named Dan Simington. I don't know if he is still alive or not, I used to eat breakfast at Coits on NW 50th and Portland. A BUNCH of the real old timers ate breakfast there. Even some guys who'd run around with Mashburn when he was till alive. I remember the first big gun shows held in OKC in the late 70s. They were a lot of fun. Shawnee and Midwest City also had some great ones. Now we have stores lile Bass Pro, Academy, and Sportsman Warehouse. Ain't the same, that's for sure.
OK Chuck, go ahead and pull out the old fart comments and get it done with. Geezer   I hate to disappoint
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The gun store was located in the old Apollo Twin theatre in Midwest City. I beleive that was H&H before they moved to I-40 and Meridian. That was in the early 90's. Good call! It wasn't H&H. But it was an indoor gun range (sporting clays for shotguns of all things!!!!!) and a regular pistol range. I'd forgot about that shop and can't remember the name. H&H has been right off I-40 for over 20 years. I'd take kids to the batting cages down the row from H&H and go into H&H to see what prices they had. That was back before I got to intensely dislike the penny pinching owner. I taught Hunter Safety Classes there in the mid 80s too. There was an indoor gun range, gun shop, and dive shop complete with indoor swimming pool on Memorial and Broadway 10 or 12 years ago. They spent over a million building it. Then it got torn down because of some deal with Sam's Club that was there. That was some kind of screwy deal. |
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I thought H&H was just south of the fairgrounds on reno street before moving to their present location. used to be the gun shop in the northeast corner of AMC market on penn/virginia and 10th, way back before the place turned into a fleamarket type affair. That was Bill something or other's gun shop. Him and his dad built that place, including a rifle range. Freddie's tire shop is there now. I used his indoor facilities for teaching SDA classes. I can't remember his last name for anything. He was a good guy but had a bad leg. His dad also owned a nice farm east of Hinton with loads of turkey and deer on it. |
| I guess I was about 16 or 17 when I was riding with my Grandfather one day, he stopped at AMC, he was looking at revolvers, they had a S&W Model 15, 4" Combat Masterpiece. My Grandfather asked me if I would like to have it, the answer was a definite yes, and he bought it for me! You could have knocked me over with a feather, it wasn't my birthday or near Christmas or anything, it just came out of nowhere! Yes...I still have that pistol!!!! |
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I guess I was about 16 or 17 when I was riding with my Grandfather one day, he stopped at AMC, he was looking at revolvers, they had a S&W Model 15, 4" Combat Masterpiece. My Grandfather asked me if I would like to have it, the answer was a definite yes, and he bought it for me! You could have knocked me over with a feather, it wasn't my birthday or near Christmas or anything, it just came out of nowhere! Yes...I still have that pistol!!!!
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I guess I was about 16 or 17 when I was riding with my Grandfather one day, he stopped at AMC, he was looking at revolvers, they had a S&W Model 15, 4" Combat Masterpiece. My Grandfather asked me if I would like to have it, the answer was a definite yes, and he bought it for me! You could have knocked me over with a feather, it wasn't my birthday or near Christmas or anything, it just came out of nowhere! Yes...I still have that pistol!!!! can't remember if that was part of AMC or if it was a store in the store type of deal, I know that was the first place I ever seen/handled a M1 garand, it was like $200, and we had to listen to my pop talk about it being way to much, because when he was in the army, garands cost you $89 if you lost yours. they also used to have the universal and I think iverjohnson(?) or planefield(?) m1 carbines there for like $150, my bro bought one, don't know how long he owned it, but the receiver cracked through one side when he was shooting it. then there was also Charlie's militaria on grand and I35 in the 80s, before it moved over to air depot, bought some swedish(?) surplus 762.51 for like $2.50/20 and a israle made mummy bag that I found out on a hunting trip I couldn't fit in, got damn cold using it for a small blanket
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I thought H&H was just south of the fairgrounds on reno street before moving to their present location.
thought that was bob howards? have not been ther since 97. i bought a lot of guns from rd taylor at the old paris flea market. i remember some guy inherited a million bucks and sent all his guns off to bee customized and ported have a nib sw 3913 , sig 228 magnaported and a sig 220 ported by aero tech i bought form that lot. the guy even had some star 9mm s ported? |
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I thought H&H was just south of the fairgrounds on reno street before moving to their present location. thought that was bob howards? have not been ther since 97. i bought a lot of guns from rd taylor at the old paris flea market. i remember some guy inherited a million bucks and sent all his guns off to bee customized and ported have a nib sw 3913 , sig 228 magnaported and a sig 220 ported by aero tech i bought form that lot. the guy even had some star 9mm s ported? Bob Howard!!!! Yep, that was his name. Good guy! Thanks, terral.
The Old Paris Flea Market gun shop was owned by a guy named Paddock for a while I believe. He was an OKC cop or retired, or something. Once ran for county sheriff. I know he was a skirt chaser. My wife saw him at the flea market the one time we went there together and told me how he kept asking her out when she was 17 working at Streets in Shepherd Mall. 
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Sw shooters isnt in business anymore? when i was living in OKC in the early 90's i spent loads of cash in there and Outdoor America. Yeah, Dale's son was selling guns out of the back door to support his drug habit. He went to prison and the sister just lost interest. Dale died too. So it shut down. I spent a lot of money in there too. |
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Yep, Southwest shooters is long gone.
I had noticed that the store was slipping, and then one day I drove over there, and the store was closed. Alas, no more! So is my mystery store the old H&H, or morphed into H&H? I was like 18 or 19 years old at the time, and only visited my mystery theatre gunstore once or twice. A hunting buddy of mine had taken me over to the store, and I had seen the 1903 A3 on the rack. I don't recall if I had bought the rifle then, or made a another trip back to buy it. This wasn't just a huge setup of a store, just a counter with a few hunting guns along a wall or two. Like I stated, I vividly remember the gunstore was embedded in a clothing store, the gunstore itself was in a sloped floor theatre like area in this old building. |
| i can't remember the name ,but they were located on midwest blvd between TP's and the Old Martinique before they bought the old theatre. They had a thriving range and gun shop before they moved and just kinda went defuct after the move I guess. I always thought it kinda funny that they were flanked by two bars. That would stir up some Sh%t in todays climate. |
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I guess I was about 16 or 17 when I was riding with my Grandfather one day, he stopped at AMC, he was looking at revolvers, they had a S&W Model 15, 4" Combat Masterpiece. My Grandfather asked me if I would like to have it, the answer was a definite yes, and he bought it for me! You could have knocked me over with a feather, it wasn't my birthday or near Christmas or anything, it just came out of nowhere! Yes...I still have that pistol!!!! can't remember if that was part of AMC or if it was a store in the store type of deal, I know that was the first place I ever seen/handled a M1 garand, it was like $200, and we had to listen to my pop talk about it being way to much, because when he was in the army, garands cost you $89 if you lost yours. they also used to have the universal and I think iverjohnson(?) or planefield(?) m1 carbines there for like $150, my bro bought one, don't know how long he owned it, but the receiver cracked through one side when he was shooting it. then there was also Charlie's militaria on grand and I35 in the 80s, before it moved over to air depot, bought some swedish(?) surplus 762.51 for like $2.50/20 and a israle made mummy bag that I found out on a hunting trip I couldn't fit in, got damn cold using it for a small blanket
Ha! You're at least a double mummy size as far as fart sacks go. Who you trying to fool? 
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I guess I was about 16 or 17 when I was riding with my Grandfather one day, he stopped at AMC, he was looking at revolvers, they had a S&W Model 15, 4" Combat Masterpiece. My Grandfather asked me if I would like to have it, the answer was a definite yes, and he bought it for me! You could have knocked me over with a feather, it wasn't my birthday or near Christmas or anything, it just came out of nowhere! Yes...I still have that pistol!!!! can't remember if that was part of AMC or if it was a store in the store type of deal, I know that was the first place I ever seen/handled a M1 garand, it was like $200, and we had to listen to my pop talk about it being way to much, because when he was in the army, garands cost you $89 if you lost yours. they also used to have the universal and I think iverjohnson(?) or planefield(?) m1 carbines there for like $150, my bro bought one, don't know how long he owned it, but the receiver cracked through one side when he was shooting it. then there was also Charlie's militaria on grand and I35 in the 80s, before it moved over to air depot, bought some swedish(?) surplus 762.51 for like $2.50/20 and a israle made mummy bag that I found out on a hunting trip I couldn't fit in, got damn cold using it for a small blanket
Ha! You're at least a double mummy size as far as fart sacks go. Who you trying to fool?
not back then, I was the same height I am now, but only pushing about a buck eighty, either iraelies are little people, or there was a reason those mummy bags were surplus. hell for all I know the iraelies mighta bought'em from some asian country and sold them to the US shops to sell as surplus to fat assed Americans. |
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Yep, Southwest shooters is long gone.
I had noticed that the store was slipping, and then one day I drove over there, and the store was closed. Alas, no more! So is my mystery store the old H&H, or morphed into H&H? I was like 18 or 19 years old at the time, and only visited my mystery theatre gunstore once or twice. A hunting buddy of mine had taken me over to the store, and I had seen the 1903 A3 on the rack. I don't recall if I had bought the rifle then, or made a another trip back to buy it. This wasn't just a huge setup of a store, just a counter with a few hunting guns along a wall or two. Like I stated, I vividly remember the gunstore was embedded in a clothing store, the gunstore itself was in a sloped floor theatre like area in this old building. hell man, the AMC gunstore was surrounded by the rest of a big clothing/grocery store, it had a sloping ramp type floor that went up into the gun store. I liked the hell out of SW shooters, bought a lot of stuff there, when they were selling out the stock, I bought all the .308 dia and .224 dia bullets on the shelves, which wasn't much, always liked buying reloading components there, they had the best prices on bullets and primers in town, OA had the powder sewed up though, but not by much. |